It's all in the game

Role-playing games still attract face-to-face players

April 22, 2012|AMANDA GRAY | South Bend Tribune

South Bend Tribune/ROBERT FRANKLIN

Editor's note: Amanda Gray is a senior American Studies major from the University of Notre Dame, as well as a current intern at The Tribune. She recently completed her senior thesis on role-playing games in American culture -- and yes, she's a gamer.

Whenever I walk into the Griffon in downtown South Bend, I can't help but notice the smell.

It smells full -- full of cards, cardboard boxes, books, dice and all the other items used in playing games of all types.

And always behind the counter is either Ken Peczkowski or Sarah Bird, depending on which day of the week you open the door to the shop, which has been a downtown fixture since the couple opened it in 1976.

Gaming, or the gaming that you'll find at The Griffon, is called "role-playing game," or RPG.

The most famous of all RPGs is "Dungeons & Dragons" (D&D), created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974 in Lake Geneva, Wis.

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D&D is easy to play: A group of players sit around a table. Everyone creates a character based on dice rolls and charts from the books, and one player acts as "dungeon master," or storyteller, for the game.

The group then begins to adventure, playing through an imagined scenario by rolling dice and imagining together.

It sounds simple, but it's also extremely fun and absorbing -- you'll find you've spent hours playing when it feels like only minutes.

Peczkowski says he started playing D&D when it came out in its first edition, known commonly as "White Box Edition" by players and collectors because of the white cardboard box that the game booklets came in.

"I started playing RPGs in the 1960s, but I've been a gamer since third grade," he says.

Peczkowski, who originally wanted to teach Russian, says the game, for him, is two parts -- both instruction and recreation.

"As a teacher, I see it as a method of instruction to learn things you didn't expect about yourself and others," he says. "You sit down expecting to play a game and you end up learning something about yourself or someone else that you would only know through deep analysis or psychological exploration.

"As a player, it's the ultimate recreation. It's as enjoyable as getting lost in a good book," he says. "After I play, I feel 'recreated.' "

He wanted to open a game shop because he saw a need in the community for a place that welcomed players in a secure environment.

"When I was growing up, I always wished, as the 'egghead' I was, for a place to go without the pressures of alcohol and locker room mentality," he says. "Sarah wanted the same things, too. When we opened this, we decided we're going to make this a place where people can feel safe."

Conventions and convictions

Gaming culture is not complete without conventions, where gamers from all over the country and world gather to play together for a long weekend.

The most famous gaming convention is GenCon, held in Indianapolis every year but founded in Lake Geneva by Gygax himself.

Peczkowski says he started attending GenCon with the second convention, and has regularly attended since.

"It felt like you were going to a sock-hop, with everyone dressed up with briefcases," he says. "Everyone was refined but shy. The convention was like coming out of the closet -- everyone knew you were a gamer."

The convention atmosphere even hit locally, when Peczkowski and Bird started GriffCon in 1978, he says. The convention was held at the Century Center, and then at the University of Notre Dame and Indiana University South Bend, for eight years.

The 1980s was the best decade for gaming, according to Peczkowski and many other gamers. It was the time with the most players, the most sales and the most fame for gaming -- but that fame wasn't always a good thing.

The 1980s brought many critics to the forefront of the campaign against gaming, specifically D&D, Peczkowski says.

"We had concerned parents asking if the game was OK for their children," he says. "I said, 'As long as your child understands the difference between imagination and reality, they will be fine.' "

Not all players had the easiest time making this distinction. In 1979, 16-year-old prodigy and Michigan State University student James Dallas Egbert III disappeared from his campus. He was a D&D player, and his disappearance was thought to be related to his addiction to the game. He was ultimately found a few states away.

The story filled the nation's papers, and, eventually, it was made into a book by the chief investigator, William Dear. "The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III" ultimately shows that it wasn't gaming that made Egbert run away, but the damage was done.

Even pop culture got into the fray, with the made-for-TV movie "Mazes and Monsters" (starring a young Tom Hanks), about a young man who loses himself to the game.

Many groups protested the game, and it still has a contested presence to this day, though not as much, nor as volatile, as it was in the 1980s.